Are you unable to generate sales constantly? There is only one thing between you and sales: RESISTANCE within your potential customer’s minds.
The biggest problem that Affiliate Marketers face is that they create compelling content about their affiliate products and market it to the right audience, yet fail to generate predictable sales because they couldn’t break resistance from their customers’ minds.
So, to help you out, I will share the top 10 customer resistances that prevent you from generating sales and growing your Affiliate Marketing business.
(1) People Do Not Trust You
When I started Affiliate Marketing, I couldn’t generate sales as people weren’t ready to trust me. Although it felt terrible, I could understand why they did not buy from me.
Will you buy from someone you do not know? If I were you, my answer would be: Definitely Not!
It is normal human behaviour to buy from people you trust. For example, if your friend suggests a new restaurant, will you go there? Or will you go to a restaurant suggested by someone you do not know?
You will go to a restaurant suggested by your friend, isn’t it?
Similarly, people will hesitate to buy from you if you are new to the market. Thankfully, there are ways to earn trust and generate sales, even if you are new!
READ: How Can Affiliate Marketers Build Trust & Make More Sales?
(2) You Are Not Credible
As I mentioned in the previous point, you buy only from people you trust. People buy from Affiliate Marketers who have earned a particular amount of money or have a customer base.
So if you are new to the market, you must first build credibility to make people believe you. You must put effort into content creation, targeting the right audience, identifying the pain points of your target market, and finding products that solve their problems.
READ: How To Create Content For Affiliate Marketing Like A Pro?
The biggest lesson I learned about customer acquisition is: People do not care how much you know until they see how much you care.
So the more you care about your target market’s challenges and help them to overcome their challenges, the more loyal customer base you will build.
(3) Your Price Is Too High
If you are selling your products, but charging too high, people are not going to buy from you. I am a product creator myself and when I launched my products, I kept a premium price to attract only serious action-takers.
With time, thanks to my Analytics data, I realised that my conversion rate was dropping. I, then, conducted a survey and asked my leads what stopped them from buying my products. About 68% of them felt that I was charging too high.
Based on the survey data, I launched a poll and asked them how much were they willing to pay for my products. Once I got their response, I promptly reduced the price and, in a month, saw a surge in my course sales.
So if you want to generate constant sales, you must keep a price that is both believable and affordable. I will recommend conducting polls or surveys and asking your potential customers how much they’d be willing to pay for your product.
However, if you do not want to change your price, offer bonuses with your main product/course. People love to get more for the same price!
(4) People Do Not Resonate With You
My mentor taught me the lesson: People need to buy you first!
So before selling any product, establish an emotional connection with people. To connect with people emotionally, share your back story, share the challenges you faced, share your breakthroughs, and share all the lessons you learnt.
People love connecting with those who are like them and if your back story or challenges resonate with what your audience is facing, you will make an instant connection.
In my live webinars, I share my “Why?” for starting Affiliate Marketing and share my journey from struggles to breakthroughs. Since my target audience also goes through them at some point, they connect with me and that reflects in my sales and revenue.
Along with your story, you must share your biggest mission. Your mission must be something that makes people want to connect with you. If you are doing Affiliate Marketing only for making money, people will sense that you are greedy and do not want to help them. So, your mission must be to help people achieve their goals, alright?
Helping your community must be your top priority, alright? It is always community first, mission second, and me third, okay?
(5) People Do Not Feel The Need To Buy Your Product
When I started conducting webinars, I thought sharing as much as possible was the formula for a super successful webinar. So I shared everything I knew about Affiliate Marketing thinking people will consider me an expert and buy without thinking twice.
But, as it turned out, I generated zero sales! Nada! Zilch! A big duck!
It made me wonder what went wrong! I shared everything about Affiliate Marketing. I shared every tool I use. I shared every resource I had. So why the heck am I not getting sales?
A few weeks later, my mentor told me that I was sharing too much. He reiterated his line: People do not care how much know until they see how much you care.
He, then, shared a formula that worked like magic! He gave me a webinar sales system that worked (and is working even now!).
EXPLORE: Webinar Set Up Challenge
Your webinars or content will work only when they have the following:
- You should address a major pain point of your target market.
- You should share a step-wise plan for helping them overcome their problems.
- You should be vulnerable with your audience and share your back story.
- You must talk about the results your students or customers got.
- Eventually, you should PRESENT YOUR PRODUCT AS A SOLUTION.
(6) People Feel Your Product Is Unhelpful
When you create content – blog posts or videos – for your products, please mention how it will help people. People want to know how a product will be beneficial to them, so cover its benefits. Additionally, you must share how your product will solve people’s problems.
In a nutshell, your content must answer the people’s question: What is in it for me?
You can include case studies of people who used your products and got results. You can also share testimonials of your existing customers.
You must include all the problems that your products solve. People do not look for products, they look for solutions to their problems, they look for a better life, etc. Hence, include points which make people believe that your product will transform their lives positively.
(7) “I Do Not Have Money!”
This, according to me, is the biggest resistance in people’s minds that prevents them from making a transaction. Look, everybody does not have money for things they do not find valuable.
So, from your content, you should make people believe that your product is extremely valuable and they will miss out on something big if they did not purchase it.
When I started 1-on-1 coaching sessions, I helped my target audience with answers to their queries and offered my paid membership. Although I helped them immensely, they came up with every possible excuse for not purchasing my product, despite my selling it for less than ₹3,000.
It is difficult to make people pay, especially when they do not know you. But, if your content can make them believe that your product is extremely valuable and that it can help them overcome their problems, people will be ready to pay.
(8) People Are Uninterested
You may have the best product in the entire world, but if people are not interested, you cannot force them to buy. You will come across this situation when you target the incorrect audience.
For example, you may sell the best and the most elegant women’s skirts, but if you target men, no matter how flawless your content and sales pitch are, you will not generate any sales.
The second scenario when people will be uninterested to buy your product is when you sell them what they already have.
For instance, when I started Affiliate Marketing, I promoted self-help books. Since I was a beginner, I was unaware of terms like “targeting” and “target market”. Back then, many of my friends were reading self-help books, so I shared my affiliate links with them, hoping they would buy and I would earn commissions.
What I overlooked was that they had already read the books I was promoting. As a result, none of them bought the books. Although it is difficult to find who has a particular product, when you run ad campaigns, you must include only those who have never bought your products.
When I run ads, I exclude people who have visited a particular page on my platform, so they do not see my ad. Showing ads to people who have interacted/transacted with you rises the ad costs and results in a lower cost per lead or cost per acquisition.
(9) People Are Reluctant To Take Action
This may hurt sentiments, so I apologize in advance! But I have to share facts. Some people are lazy to take action. You may have a product that will surely help them overcome their problems, but they will not invest in it because they know they will never use it.
According to LearnDash, “the average completion rate for online courses teeters around 15% and the dropout rates are astronomical.”
So if you are planning to launch your courses, please keep in mind that only 15% of people will complete them. That is, only 3 out of every 20 students will complete your courses.
The stat is discouraging but you cannot blame anyone. Life takes over and people forget they invested in something. Since online courses are recorded, they think they will watch them later, but that keeps on delaying.
You cannot force people to take action. So the best you can do is to encourage them to do some small tasks in every video. For example, towards the end of every video in my paid membership, I ask my students to do something that they could finish in 3-4 minutes.
These small accomplishments build momentum and people are inspired to do more.
(10) You Did Not Tell Much About Your Product(s)
Suppose you hear a knock on your door. You get up, open the door, and see a salesman. You greet them and they respond by saying, “Sir, buy this product. It is the best in the market!”
There are two possible reactions to this.
- First reaction: You will buy! (But, will you?)
- Second reaction: You will reject! You will never buy it!
Now, let us visualise a different scenario. You hear a knock on your door. You get up, open the door, and see a salesman. You greet them and they greet you back. Then they ask your permission to tell about a product.
Although many people deny it, you decide to listen to them. They, then, talk about a problem that you could be facing. You listen to them attentively and feel that whatever the salesman is saying makes sense.
They, then, talk about the solution to the problem. The solution – you guessed it right! – is the product they are selling. They talk about the product, its pros and cons, and the use cases.
To make you believe in the product’s potential, they share a couple of case studies of people who used the product and got results.
Now, you are at a point where you know everything about the product. You also know that it works for people who use it and that it solves your problem. So, what will you do?
Will you purchase it? (Share your views in the comments box)
If I were you and if I had the product information, its pros and cons, testimonials or case studies, and that it solves my problem, I will not hesitate to buy it!
So to make people buy your product, you must include the following information in your pitch:
- Share the pros and cons of the product. No product is perfect, so share a piece of fair information.
- Address the pain points or challenges of your target audience.
- Share case studies of people who used the product and got results.
- Ask questions to your audience, if possible.
- Pitch the product as a solution!
Conclusion
In this post, I covered the top 10 resistances that your potential customers might have while purchasing your products. It is your responsibility to address the resistances and help your audience break them.
Only when your content breaks resistances, are people ready to buy. Therefore, you must plan your content in a way that helps people to buy or make the decision.
As an Affiliate Marketer, you must help people make a buying decision through your content. You must never sell products to people, you must aim to help people, solve their problems, and provide value through your content.
How did you pitch your products before coming across this post?
